Together at the Table

by Hillary Manton Lodge

  And, also, I was very young and bored with life in the country. I moved to the city to study pastry, and it lead me straight to you, straight to us.

  Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d enrolled sooner, or later, if I would have missed your pastry class altogether, if we wouldn’t have found each other, made the girls. But the more I think about it, the more I think I would have seen you in the halls, met you at the market—I think I would have found you, you would have found me.

  I miss you.

  Caterina dabbed at her eyes. “That is awful.”

  “C’est étrange.” Sandrine exclaimed. “My mother adopting Alice…I thought I would know if I had an adopted sister.”

  “If it’s anything like the letters, we’ll have just as many questions in the end as answers,” Sophie commented dryly.

  “At least we will know more,” my father said, patting her hand. “And who knows? How much writing is in the volume, Juliette?”

  I flipped through to the back. “Nearly to the end.”

  “Sì, sì, many answers to be had. Keep reading, Giulietta.”

  So I read on.

  Dear Gabriel,

  Gilles is kind to me and I hate him for it. I know it’s not strictly rational behavior, but there it is. I see him, and I am angry that it’s him and not you.

  It’s not fair, because having him at the chateau has been beneficial for my father. They spend their days talking over the lavender crop, the honey, and the horses. Richard joins in, but he is a carpenter, whereas Gilles’s first love is the land and the outdoors.

  Age has not been kind to my father—I see it more now that I’ve returned. His walk has slowed; his shoulders are more stooped. He still looks fine, but I worry for his health. Cécile told me that the doctor worries for his heart.

  But I’m angry with Gilles because I’m now his wife, and I know what it’s like to be a wife—and I won’t, can’t be a wife to him. I don’t know what he expects, and I’m not going to ask in order to find out.

  Does he intend for us to remain married, or divorce after the war? Making my way in the world with Gabrielle wouldn’t be easy, but I could make it.

  Does he intend for us to, one day, have a real marriage? There’s no way I could ever, ever love him even a little the way I loved you. We were engaged once, but I was young, and I didn’t know what it was like to really, truly love a person from the depths of the heart.

  And now that I know, how could I ever go back?

  I must be grateful, though, for he provides Gabrielle and me with protection, with a new name.

  Tante Joséphine believes that I should try to make a new life with Gilles. How can I, though, when I still look for you from the corner of my eye, reach for you in bed, dream of you every night?

  How can I move on, while Alice yet sleeps in Cook’s cottage?

  Each morning, I wake expecting to be in our Paris apartment, the girls in the next room.

  I miss you. You would know what to do, what to say.

  Dear Gabriel,

  Tante Joséphine has arrived. I felt such relief at her presence, that surely she will bring good sense to the house.

  And while she has requested that my mother stop hovering, an understandable sentiment, she had troubling words of advice.

  She drew me to the garden, along with Gabrielle—I won’t be parted from her—and asked after the four of us: myself and Gilles, Gabrielle and Alice (I can’t write their new names here, it hurts too much).

  She told me I must be strong, and I must be a wife to Gilles. That our survival and Gabrielle’s happiness depend on my being extraordinary. That I must not allow ghosts and regrets to rule my life.

  I told her that trying to have a life with Gilles made me feel as though the last three years hadn’t happened.

  And she replied that I had Gabrielle as my reminder, but that in these times, maybe setting aside those three years wasn’t a bad thing. That as hard as I fought for Gabriel and me to be together, that I had to work even harder to build a life with Gilles.

  “It won’t be easy,” she said, “and it’s certainly not fair. But Gabrielle needs a future, even more than you or I. You must put aside your old life and create her a new one.”

  I gave my very best arguments, which weren’t really arguments at all but a recitation of my distaste for every aspect of the situation.

  She let me argue as long as I wished and then turned a shrewd old eye at me. “You’re right, of course. But then you know I am too.”

  I told her that I can’t even look at Gilles. She told me to see him differently.

  I think she’d be very happy as a wise old woman living atop a mountain, dispensing advice to travelers whether they like it or not.

  I will hide you close in my heart, dearest. You may be hidden away, but I carry you close.

  ~FRENCH TOAST WITH RICOTTA AND TANGERINES ~

  1 loaf challah or brioche, cut into 1-inch slices

  5 large eggs

  1½ cups whole milk

  15 ounces part-skim ricotta cheese

  ⅓ cup honey

  ⅓ cup orange juice

  Pinch salt

  Zest and fruit segments of 6 mandarin oranges

  ¾ cup orange marmalade

  In a shallow bowl, whisk the eggs and milk together.

  In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the ricotta cheese, honey, orange juice, salt, and zest.

  Dredge challah slices in the egg mixture, cook on a heated griddle until browned, then flip. Repeat until all slices have been cooked. Serve with a generous dollop of the ricotta mixture on top, followed by a spoonful of the marmalade and a sprinkling of the mandarin wedges.

  Makes about 8 servings.

  Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.

  —C. S. LEWIS

  Caterina, Nico, and I made breakfast for everyone early the next morning, despite Sandrine’s protests. Neil ducked into the kitchen, heard Caterina and Nico bickering, and pulled me aside.

  “You need me?”

  I looked over my shoulder at my siblings and back at Neil. “You can go find somewhere quiet.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I gave him a peck on the cheek. “I am. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  Nico made a quiche, while Caterina made a fruit-filled crumb cake. I made breakfast biscotti for the Italian family to eat with their coffee, and once it was in the oven, set to work on the espresso.

  Alex joined us in the kitchen at the last minute, prepping fresh fruit and plating it on three platters to place down the table.

  Damian helped carry the food to the table, and my father served the coffee. Caterina’s boys placed napkins around the table, while Sophie and Chloé set out the plates and flatware. Nelson poured water.

  We laughed and talked, Nico and Caterina ribbing each other while also admitting the other’s food was delicious.

  Damian leaned over to Neil. “I’m a chef too, you know. But even I don’t go into the kitchen with those two.”

  After breakfast, Letizia joined Sandrine and the rest of us around the table for the next foray into Mireille’s diary.

  Caterina grabbed a piece of biscotti first. “Here. I’ve armed myself for another round of sadness.”

  Dear Gabriel,

  I dream of you often. I wish they were happy dreams, variations on memories of our life in Paris, but instead they are nightmares about your death.

  My mind pulled together the elements of the story I’d been told, piecing them together until it became a terrible film reel in my mind played over and over. You unaware, the officers, the gun, the shot—and repeat.

  And Alice was there, and crying. There was nothing I could do.

  I awoke to Gabrielle crying, and realized that when I’d heard Alice in my dream, it had been Gabrielle startled awake by my weeping.

  After a moment or two of rocking and humming she drifted back to sleep again. Myself, I was not so lucky: I feared going back to sleep
and returning to the dream.

  Perhaps I should have Gabrielle sleep in the next room, if I’m going to disturb her. I hate the thought of having her so far, and yet nothing good can come from a sleep-deprived toddler.

  We woke Gilles. Did I tell you about our sleeping arrangements?

  Maman insists that we must do our best to make the servants believe that we are married, that we have been married. Only the housekeeper saw us all walk in, Gilles and I and the girls arriving first, followed by Nathan and his family in his truck. Papa kept the rest of the servants away from us, with the exception of Cook—for there are never any secrets from those who feed us.

  And Cook was as a second mother to me, teaching me how to find my way around the kitchen when I was a young girl. So she consented easily to being a part of the deception, taking Alice to her sister’s with the story that she was her son’s love child, recently delivered by a mother determined to make a life for herself in Toulouse. As for Gabrielle and me, the story going into the village remains that Gilles and I married quietly in Toulouse and had a child.

  These stories are all predicated on Toulouse being a good place to make secret children.

  I don’t know why Gilles and I would have kept such a thing secret, but it’s not a lie I’m interested in telling in the first place, at least not enough to create a believable story. People will probably decide that Gabrielle is a love child and that I had difficulty getting Gilles to agree to marry me, or some similar sort of nonsense.

  Gilles and I now occupy a suite of rooms at the chateau. There’s a bedroom and a sitting room, and a door connecting the sitting room to the nursery. The first night, after we married, I worried he would want to join me in my bed. If he had, Gabriel, I would have fought him like a fury.

  I suppose that is me flattering myself. Few men desire a weepy woman with a short temper and several kilos of pregnancy weight still clinging to her body.

  Instead, without conversation, Gilles made a bed for himself on the settee, with the footstool giving his giant feet a place to rest.

  Dearest Gabriel,

  I think Tante Joséphine talked to Gilles. Because this afternoon he asked me if I would teach him to cook.

  I asked him why, and he looked away before saying that he thought it might be practical. And also, that it was something important to me, and so it could be important to him.

  Obviously, it was Tante Joséphine’s idea. No man would think of such a thing himself. I considered dismissing him out of hand. But I knew if I did, I’d hear from Tante Joséphine about it.

  So I agreed. But I couldn’t manage to be particularly polite about it.

  “Poor Grandpa Gilles!” Caterina exclaimed. “He’s trying! He wants to cook!”

  “I think it’s sweet,” Sophie said.

  “He sounds like a very smart man,” said Letizia.

  Damian shook his head. “I feel bad for him.”

  “How much is left in the book?” my father asked.

  I flipped through the pages. “Seems like a lot.”

  “We will stop interrupting you, or you shall never finish. And have others take turns—no need to go hoarse for history.”

  I grinned at him. “Okay, Papa. Here’s the next letter. ‘Dearest Gabriel,’ ” I began.

  Truly. Nothing good comes of a toddler with too little sleep. Gabrielle has been fussy and petulant all day, despite an afternoon nap so long I checked to see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

  Tonight she’ll be in the nursery. I dread it, though Anouk seems to be relishing the chance to have me to herself.

  I know that Cécile, likewise, would like more…time. For reassurance of a sisterly connection. She’s so careful, I can see it in her eyes. She doesn’t know what to do with me, and unfortunately it’s mutual. I love my sister so much. She is so happy with Richard, but I know the impending adoption of Alice weighs heavily on them. Neither wishes to feel as if they are depriving me of my daughter.

  She has so much joy. I worry that if she spends too much time with me, my vinegar will overtake her sweetness.

  Cécile visits Alice, where she resides with Cook’s sister. In two weeks, Cécile will declare herself so smitten that she will bring Alice back to the chateau.

  My beautiful Alice, who wears your face in her own sweet, feminine way. I anxiously await and dread having her back. It is safer for her not to be yours; no one would believe her to belong to Gilles. Cook’s son had a dark complexion, which helps to further the veracity of the story.

  But what if she doesn’t remember me?

  And what if she does?

  How much more can my heart take without breaking in two?

  Dearest Gabriel,

  Tante Joséphine suggested that we make a gravesite for you on the property. We wouldn’t have your body, of course—I don’t know if the police returned it to your parents, or…no, I cannot think of it. The important part is that you do not now inhabit your physical body.

  She suggested we could bury a memento or two, and if we could not part with anything, a lock of hair from Gabrielle, Alice, and myself.

  She meant a lock, likely a small one at that, but I asked Maman’s maid to cut my hair into a short, serviceable bob.

  It’s much more practical short, and I have no desire to coax my longer hair into any other, more fashionable styles. You liked my curls, and without you I have no use for them.

  I placed my hair, which had become too long anyway, into a box, along with a curl of Gabrielle’s and a curl from Alice—procured by Françoise. Maman was quite shocked by my short hair, as you would expect. Cécile charitably said it made me look like Myrna Loy, the American film star, which…I suspect not. But it was kind of her to say.

  Papa spoke to a mason for a length of stone, which will remain unmarked for now. We trooped outside, all of us, to bury the box of hair.

  Tante Joséphine said a few kind words when she saw that I could not speak, not without weeping again and frightening Gabrielle.

  I set the box in the ground, in a hole that Tante Joséphine asked Gilles to dig. We took turns throwing earth over the top. I took the shovel, at the end, and buried the box the rest of the way.

  When I turned around, I saw that Gilles remained with Gabrielle, Anouk sitting at his feet, but the rest of the family had returned to the house.

  “We can plant flowers there, if you like,” Gilles said.

  Gabrielle seemed so at home in his arms that it nearly broke my heart anew. But my heart was too broken to respond as it would otherwise, and I told him that some flowers would be nice. I carried daisies when we married, do you remember? I told Gilles I’d like some daisies near your headstone, and he felt they’d have plenty of sun there. So that’s settled.

  Dearest Gabriel,

  I had a terrible nightmare again, this time watching you die from afar, too far away to be able to do anything. And I saw Alice; her cries pierced my heart, and I woke sobbing to find Gilles sitting on the bed, having taken Gabrielle to comfort her before trying to wake me. I must have cried out in my sleep, startling Gabrielle. Anouk was curled into a ball on my pillow, as close to my head as she could get.

  I asked what he was doing, and he said our cries had woken him, that he was only trying to help.

  I considered snapping at him but thought better of it—I was sensible enough to know he was trying to do a good thing. I sat up and took Gabrielle into my arms, and she pulled at my nightdress to feed. Gilles blushed—I could not see it, but I knew it was there. I fed her discreetly with a pillowcase draped over myself (not that I cared at all, but Gilles is certainly rather delicate). As Gabrielle’s cries subsided, my own breathing began to even out.

  “I should put her in the nursery, shouldn’t I?” I asked Gilles, hoping he might disagree with me.

  “She might sleep better,” he said instead.

  I thought about it, mulling in my head the idea of having her so far away. In truth, it would be the farthest she’d ever slept—in
our Paris apartment, of course, she was never more than six meters from me at any time. But the distance from my bed to hers in the nursery had to be nine meters. A short distance for many, but too far for my comfort.

  But as I held her close, I knew that my comfort must matter less than hers. She’d already begun to drift off. When she finished eating, I drew my nightdress back over my shoulder and stood to carry her to her own bed, to finish out the remainder of the night. Gilles steadied me with a gentle hand on my elbow, and the three of us—four, with Anouk—walked to the nursery.

  The room was snug and warm enough, and when I placed Gabrielle in the crib, she simply curled up on her side and continued to sleep.

  I didn’t want to leave, but I’d already begun to sway where I stood.

  Gilles helped me back to bed, and nodded at me before returning to his settee.

  The next morning, Gabrielle was bright eyed and cheery. It’s the right thing, Gabriel, but that doesn’t mean I must enjoy it.

  Dearest Gabriel,

  Maman has hired a nursemaid for Gabrielle. Marise is young, a year younger than Cécile, but she comes from a large family and has a canny way with Gabrielle. When Alice arrives, she will care for them both. She can sleep in the nursery with Gabrielle, so she will not be alone. This brings me some comfort, for if I cannot be with her, at least she will have company.

  My dreams have not ceased, but at least I am not disturbing Gabrielle.

  They disturb Gilles, though. I have suggested he take a room farther away, but he shakes his head and offers me a glass of water, waiting until I have quieted to go back to his settee.

  There is gray at his temples that was not there before, when we were young. I suppose it was only a few years ago, but it feels more like a lifetime ago. I remember him differently. Is it possible he has changed? It seems uncharitable to think it impossible, for I know I’m not the girl who left the chateau to study pastry in Paris.